Yet another addition to my family.

[dashnu]

Hello all,

I went to the pet store to by pinkys...... A bunch of money later I came home with a new enclosure and a new female 6 month old Ball Python. I love her. I think I’m going to name her Tess after my Doberman who was sadly stolen from my yard.

STORY TIME (for those interested, if not please be kind enough to check out my questions)

My girls and the "sweet" shirts I made up for them!!




I feel I have already learned the most important lesson... THEY ARE ESCAPE ARTISTS!! The store gave me a box with the lids folded in that "special" way to stay closed ya know? So anyways I was working really hard with my girls to get the new enclosure ready for the other critters probably about 2 hours worth of work cleaning and whatnot.. (And the fact I’m doing this with my 2 & 3 year old daughters) I checked about halfway through and she was in the box still. So finally all the enclosures are ready old critters moved to the new enclosure old enclosure cleaned out. Now keep in mind Kiah, my three year old this entire time "can we see the new snake dada" EVERY 5 MINUTES.. So finally, "OK Kiah go sit on dada's bed ill bring the box in... She is freaking at this point her face lit up like the morning sun.. Go in to my room with the box and opened it up.. Kiah now is like "ooooohhhh" "dadaaaaaa" "loooooook" those shortly turned to "dada?" "dada is she small??" Dada is she in there??"" Of course I see this unreal look of sadness on Kiah's face and I tear through the box and paper towels NOTHINGGGG!!! ARGHHH!! We freak tear apart the kitchen move EVERYTHING still nothing. Last place I look (and the most obvious to me now) behind the fridge.. BAMM there she was catching the heat from the back of the fridge! !! Oh man the three of us were flipping out now with excitement.. So yea.. That’s my story..

Now to the more important things... if you made it through that story..

I really want to do things right and have a few questions.

My Enclosure:


1: How does this look? It is a 35 Gallon... The side with the half log is the warm side usually around 75-90 degrees. I use a under the tank heat pad that covers about half the warm side bottom. and a 150W "Red" Nocturnal infrared heat lamp.



2: I am unsure what the humidity should be ? I just took some cold water and sprayed some mist around bringing it up to 55. What is ideal level for this snake??



3: This is the hide / half log. Would she feel more secure it the back was block off by something other than the glass?? Is the glass enough?



4: Her water dish.. Is this big enough?? When she is curled up I could probably fit 4 of her in here.. AND I came home from a job today and she was hiding under this?? it "opens" up at the bottom.. This is what lead me to the fact I may have a humidity problem.




5: In the center I have three log/branches is this to much clutter? Should I take one out? Two maybe?

6: Last Question and the reason I do not have a few nice shiny pics of her is.. She seems to be pretty aggressive. She has striked at me twice. She allows me to hold her however she stays in a ball for the most part. I got her yesterday and have handled her 5 to 6 times.. Am I stressing her out. I think I am thats why I haven't taken her out from under the water dish to show you wonderful people pics.. What is some good advice on handling? I really want her to be tame so my girls can experience her also.

Any other suggestions to make her life a better one would be greatly appreciated!!!!!!!!!!

[Snake lover 3-25]

well.... i don't know anything about pythons...... but your kids are SOOOO cute!!!LOL can't wait to see pics of the snake!!!

[Loren]

[quote=dashnu;54393]

Well, I will answer best I can- just my personal opinions of coarse.

1: How does this look? It is a 35 Gallon... The side with the half log is the warm side usually around 75-90 degrees. I use a under the tank heat pad that covers about half the warm side bottom. and a 150W "Red" Nocturnal infrared heat lamp.
Looks great to me. She would have to get pretty big to outgrow that. When I had my ball python in a similar tank(mine was a 20 gallon long) I had bark substrate, with a heat pad on one end, and it worked well. The heat lamp is only needed if he is kept in a cool place- 90 or so during the day, a little coooler at night. My reptile room is pretty warm, so I just had the heater. (Mine is in a tub rack now)


2: I am unsure what the humidity should be ? I just took some cold water and sprayed some mist around bringing it up to 55. What is ideal level for this snake??

I dont own a humidity gauge, but what I did, is cover alittle over half of the screen lid with card board, to help hold in humidity, and mist the cage with room temp water almost every day- just enough to dampen the top layer of the substrate. Just dont create areas that are always wet, or bacteria will grow.
As long as I kept up on it, he shed well. You could cover even more of the top, as long as you can still work the temps right.
If you use filtered drinking water, your tank will not get water spotted from the misting- well worth the dollar or so a month.





3: This is the hide / half log. Would she feel more secure it the back was block off by something other than the glass?? Is the glass enough?

She would be more secure- You could use a different hide, or tape a small cardboard cutout against the back glass, and press it up to it, or put a background on the tank and press the hide up to it.


4: Her water dish.. Is this big enough?? When she is curled up I could probably fit 4 of her in here.. AND I came home from a job today and she was hiding under this?? it "opens" up at the bottom.. This is what lead me to the fact I may have a humidity problem.
That should be fine for a small snake. She might hide under it because it is darker than the log hide.



5: In the center I have three log/branches is this to much clutter? Should I take one out? Two maybe?
I think its fine while she is small. You can always remove some of it as she grows, to make more room for her. In the wild, they live in jungles, so they are used to "clutter".

6: Last Question and the reason I do not have a few nice shiny pics of her is.. She seems to be pretty aggressive. She has striked at me twice. She allows me to hold her however she stays in a ball for the most part. I got her yesterday and have handled her 5 to 6 times.. Am I stressing her out. I think I am thats why I haven't taken her out from under the water dish to show you wonderful people pics.. What is some good advice on handling? I really want her to be tame so my girls can experience her also.

I have never had aggresiveness problems with mine. Make sure it knows its you, and not food, coming into the cage(dont surprise her), and I would leave her alone mostly for a few weeks till she can get settled in. Then handle for just a few minutes at a time here and there until she gets use to you.
I would also watch closely for mites(little black dots that move) and ticks, since you just got her. They can be hard to see- you have to look closely,especially around the eyes, but its not real uncommon for a newly aquired python to have them. They can make the snake uncomfortable and more aggresive too.

Hope this helps. You can find ball python caresheets all over on the internet if you want more specific heat/humidity details.

quote]

[dashnu]

well.... i don't know anything about pythons...... but your kids are SOOOO cute!!!LOL can't wait to see pics of the snake!!!

Thx! I am trying to keep them really focused on "different" things like Bindi The Jungle Girl, hense the shirts They were stoked when i gave them those!

[dashnu]

First off, thanks Loren! This is such a great place to learn.

I have never had aggresiveness problems with mine. Make sure it knows its you, and not food, coming into the cage(dont surprise her),

I have yet to feed her. I plan to do this in a large plastic container away from her enclosure. I also heard of people putting a piece of clothing in the cage? Not sure I need to go this far seeing im sleeping 6 feet away from her.

and I would leave her alone mostly for a few weeks till she can get settled in. Then handle for just a few minutes at a time here and there until she gets use to you.

This sounds like a great idea. It will be hard not to hold her but will be best for her im sure

I would also watch closely for mites(little black dots that move) and ticks, since you just got her. They can be hard to see- you have to look closely,especially around the eyes, but its not real uncommon for a newly aquired python to have them. They can make the snake uncomfortable and more aggresive too.

I will keep a close eye out for this. Ticks have to be one of the worst creatures on earth!!!!! Allthough I am a bit confused how she would get ticks short of me or the kids bringing them into the house..


Thanks again more questions to come im sure

[Lori P]

Brett, congrats on your new baby! Loren answered your questions, I just wanted to add that in my limited experience (I have 2 balls) (giggle) they tend to be very shy, and not very mobile. Mine stay hidden 99.99999 percent of the time, only coming out at night-- and not even every night, at that. They are notoriosly difficult feeders... and can go on hunger strikes for months and months. Whatever she has been eating, stick with it... they are nowhere near as flexible as the garters when it comes to food.

Your daughters are ADORABLE!!!! :-)

[dashnu]

Brett, congrats on your new baby! Loren answered your questions, I just wanted to add that in my limited experience (I have 2 balls) (giggle) they tend to be very shy, and not very mobile. Mine stay hidden 99.99999 percent of the time, only coming out at night-- and not even every night, at that. They are notoriosly difficult feeders... and can go on hunger strikes for months and months. Whatever she has been eating, stick with it... they are nowhere near as flexible as the garters when it comes to food.

Your daughters are ADORABLE!!!! :-)

Thanks for the info! I think your a mind reader, I was just finishing up reading the new posts and was going to mention in this thread that my ball has been hiding under her water dish for almost 24 hours now.. So this sounds like normal behavior. I may have high hopes, however, I really was hoping to hang out with this snake a lot. I work from home so having her in the living room on me and really spending a lot of time with her was/is my goal... Is this unrealistic or better yet unhealthy for her????

She has been on fuzzies, I was told to thaw one out and try to feed this coming Wednesday. She is pretty chunky right now which is good in case I run into issues feeding. I found a site with some videos 8ballpythons.com that mentioned to keep food in the feeding area for about an hour before feeding.. So for feeding I wanted to get a large plastic container with some paper towels and a hide and put her in it. I was thinking to thaw the pinky out on top of the container so the smell would slowly get stronger and stronger.. Hopefully getting her excited to eat. If she takes the fuzzy should I try to feed weekly or every other? The people at the pet store were not very helpful. They told me it was ok to feed my garters gold-fish

Last question for now, Not just a ball question.... Is taking your critters out and letting them poke around the yard a bad idea? I have taken my garters out for a "walk" if the weather is warm enough. Let them cruise around the grass a bit.. Same with my anole and gecko. I suspect what im reallying doing is stressing them out when I think I am letting them explore a bit?? Jeesh im crazy arnt I?

Thanks again Lori, and take good care of your balls!

[anji1971]

I take my garters for a walk now and then too!! I let them climb around in the little mimosa tree in my yard -- it's small enough that I can fish them out of even the top branches.
I don't think it stresses them out at all, in fact, they seem to love it. Much more space to climb than in their tank.
Congrats on the new addition. I know absolutely nothing about ball pythons, but from what I've read, they aren't very active, and you may not get the 'hanging out' experience you were hoping for, but hey, it's worth a try!
And you're little jungle girls are extremely cute!

[dashnu]

I take my garters for a walk now and then too!! I let them climb around in the little mimosa tree in my yard -- it's small enough that I can fish them out of even the top branches.
I don't think it stresses them out at all, in fact, they seem to love it. Much more space to climb than in their tank.
Congrats on the new addition. I know absolutely nothing about ball pythons, but from what I've read, they aren't very active, and you may not get the 'hanging out' experience you were hoping for, but hey, it's worth a try!
And you're little jungle girls are extremely cute!

Haha, thanks anji! So I guess I am not crazy for talking my critters out for a walk

[dashnu]

Ok, I had to refill the water bowl so took a few pics. Most are through the glass so not the best but better than nothing.